1 Breakfast at Madeline's (23 page)

Then I attempted to call my cop friend Dave to tell him about Bonnie, but in my brain-damaged state I'd forgotten again what kind of fish he was. Halibut? Hammerhead? I hobbled across the street to his house and rang his bell repeatedly, to no avail. He didn't have a girlfriend that I knew of, he wasn't working nights, and he hadn't said anything about going away for the weekend
...
so where was he?

I went home and thought about calling the police station, but Dave was the only cop I knew. What would I say to some stranger on the phone? The truth was, all I really had on Bonnie was a similar shoe and a similar brick—nothing tying her directly into the murder. Of course, I also had the fact she went nutso on me tonight, but nobody else had witnessed that.

And yeah, I had a motive too, but would it be enough to convince the cops?

This was infuriati
ng. A horrible thought kept run
ning through my head: Bonnie Engels is the murderer.

But who the hell will ever believe me?

I was still the only one who even believed that Penn had been murdered—except for the murderer herself, of course. Bottom line, Penn was a bum, a derelict, a troublemaker, not
the kind of guy who'd make num
ber one on the cops' To D
o list. I'd need to get more ev
idence somehow if I ever expected them to reopen his case and nail Bonnie. And what's more, I needed it fast—before those mutant beetles took over my life.

I decided the best thing to do was wait until Dave came home from his movie or barhopping or whatever and get him to help me.
First I called
the
Saratoga Hos
pital and learned that, yes, a woman named Bonnie Engels with a heavily bleeding arm had just come into the emergency room, and did I wish to speak to her? I didn't, so I hung up the phone.

I'd been to that emergency room a couple of times with my kids, and I knew how long things took there. Once when Gretzky got a piece of a walnut up his nose, we sat there for hours and he eventually sneezed it out before any doctors appeared. So I figured Bonnie would be tied up for a while.

But just in case she somehow made it out of there and headed this way, I grabbed Gretzky's hockey stick to defend myself with.
Then I sat in our darkened liv
ing room with the curtains open. Planning to pounce on Dave the instant h
e got home, I watched his drive
way across the street and waited.

27

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

The words kept t
ime with the pounding in my nog
gin and the throbbing in my foot.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"

Through blurry, hal
f-closed eyes, I could see Gret
zky was so excited, he was flapping his arms up and down like a bird. Wait a minute. Where was I? I sat bolt upright in the living room chair. Jeez, I must have fallen asleep.

I looked at my watch. Six forty. I felt like a fool. Sam Spade, even at his drunkest, would never have fallen asleep in the middle
of a case, with the crazed mur
derer almost in his gr
asp. Was it that delayed concus
sion syndrome thing again? Maybe I really better check myself back into the hospital.

Now that he was sure I was awake, Gretzky asked me, "Daddy, why were you sleeping with my hockey stick? Do you want to play hockey with me?"

"Gretzky, go to bed," I hissed impatiently. I looked across the street; Dave's car was back in his driveway.

"Daddy—"

"Go back to bed
right now."
I needed to collect my foggy thoughts and go rap on Dave's door.

Gretzky's lips quivered. He was about to cry. "But, Daddy! I made peepee! Just like a real hockey player!"

God, the kid was such a little sweetheart. I pulled him into the chair with me and we cuddled.

But not for long. Immediately he started agitating again to play hockey. "Sure, and we can use my head for a puck," I said, "because that's how it feels."

He didn't appreciate my attempt at humor. "Real hockey players
always
play hockey after they make peepee," he told me earnestly.

Whoa, I better nip this one in the bud. "Look, I'm not going to play hockey with you every time you go to the bathroom. That's not how it works."

Gretzky was outraged. Oh, the injustice of it all! "But that's what the hockey player said!" Gretzky screamed. "We
have
to play hockey!"

"Be quiet!"
I snapped, louder than I meant to, and he started bawling. I felt like bawling, too. I knew exactly what would happen next. Babe Ruth would wake up from the noise, get into bed with Andrea, and start quizzing her about Butch Huskey. Then she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, and she'd stomp around the house pissed off at me, because it was supposed to be my morning to take care of the kids and let her sleep (we alternate). D
idn't any of these people under
stand I had a murder case to solve? Gretzky's cries were driving me insane. I was getting dizzy again, and I needed coffee—intravenously, if possible. I couldn't face Dave without some coffee first.

"Hockey! Hockey!"
Gretzky yelled.

"Coffee! Coffee!"
I yelled back, even louder. That shocked him into silence, and he stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. I melted into a worn-out pile of tired, guilty slush. "Honey, I'm s
orry, I just really, re
ally,
really
want coffe
e," I whined, turning into a ma
nipulative three year old myself.

I guess Gretzky could tell I was at the end of my rope, because he sai
d to me, in a suddenly very rea
sonable tone, "I tell you what. First you
can have cof
fee, then we'll play hockey."

"Thank you. Thank you, Gretzky," I said gratefully, hugging him. Coffee and hockey, then Dave. It was a plan. Dave would probably be more agreeable if I didn't wake him up at 6:45, anyway.

I figured I better get Gretzky and myself out of the house before we had another loud argument and woke up the others. So
that's how we ended up at Made
line's at the stroke of seven, just as they were opening up. I peeked in through the window, prepared to go to Uncommon Grounds instead if I saw Marcie. But it looked like Rob was on his own, so Gretzky and I went in. Hopefully Gretzky would get distracted by their books and toys, and it would delay our hockey game even further. "Hey, Rob," I greeted him.

Rob looked up from his coffee grinding, surprised to see me so early on a weekend morning. He turned off the grinder and said, "Hey, my first customers. What's up?"

Gretzky broke in. "Guess what? We went to a hockey game?" Sometimes when he's excited about something, he turns every sentence into a question. "And there was this goalie? And you know how many times he stopped their shots?"

"How many?" Rob asked indulgently.

"Fifty-five million!"

"Wow, that's a lot."

"Fifty-five million trillion infinity!" Gretzky crowed.

"Coffee, please," I put in.

Rob threw me a smile. "I'll make the Ethiopian."

I started to tell him Colombian would be fine, but he'd already turned his back to get the beans. And there's no way he would have heard me anyway above Gretzky, who was singing out, "Fifty-f
ive mil
lion trillion infinity infinity zillion thousand!"

Walking gingerly o
n my twisted ankle, I took Gret
zky to the back room, where I sat down and waited for my caffeine while he went to the bookcase and checked out the kids' section. I gazed out the window. The sun was rising, the sky was a gorgeous shade of light blue, and I tried
to empty my mind of all my wor
ries. It didn't work.

Rob came up. "Coffee'll be ready in a minute."

I nodded my thanks, and he sat down with me. "Jacob, I want to let you know, we're scheduling The Penn's memorial tribute for Tuesday night. We'll sit around and drink Ethiopian and swap stories about him. How's that sound?"

Sounded great. We could invite Bonnie to come in and tell us the story of how she killed him. I sighed
un
happily, and Rob peered at me, his eyes full of gentle concern. "Hey, dude, you look a little spaced this morning."

"Life's a bitch, bro," I told him. "Insanity rules."

"Insanity always rules," Rob agreed.

I wiped some sleep out of my eyes. Maybe if I talked to someone, it would straighten out my fuzzball brain. "I found out what happened," I said in a low voice.

Rob frowned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I know who killed Donald Penn."

Rob stared at me, stunned, and said, "You're kidding."

I shook my head solemnly. "No."

I got a big kick out of Rob's reaction to my success. He was totally blown away, but tried to act Hollywood cool about it. "Man, I don't know what to say. So what are you gonna do?"

Aye, there's the rub. "I'll tell the police. See if they believe me."

Rob nodded tho
ughtfully. "You have enough evi
dence?"

Well, by God, that high-heel shoe and that mottled brick ought to be enough to at least get the cops started. And hey, if Molly saved the threatening typewritten note that flew through her window with the brick, maybe they'd be able to identify Bonnie's typewriter. Come to think of it, I'd noticed an old IBM Selectric in the Shoeshine and a Smile office.

"I think I do have enough," I said slowly. "I think I can pull this off."

Rob gave a little laugh and shook his head. I got the feeling he didn't really believe me, which pissed me off, but I couldn't say I blamed him. "You're quite a guy, Jacob," Rob said as he stood up. "Let me get you that Ethiopian—on the house."

"And I want milk!" Gretzky squealed from over by the bookcase. Rob nodded and headed for the front room as the kid jumped in my lap with a Curious George book and asked me to read to him. Next to hockey, monkeys are his biggest passion. My eyes weren't quite focusing yet, but reading aloud would require less energy than playing hockey, so I began. " 'Curious G
eorge Takes a Job,'" I read. " ‘
This is George. He lived in the zoo.'"

I was already at the part where Curious George is hiding underneath the elephant's ear when Rob came in with the coffee and milk and put them on the table. I thanked him and kept reading. No doubt Rob was dying to hear my theory about The Penn's death, but I was still irrationally pissed off at him for not believing me, so I decided to make him wait until I finished the book. As I turned the page, I picked up my cup and started to drink, but Gretzky shouted, "I want some!"

"Okay," I said. Yeah, I know three year olds are too young to drink coffee, but he loves a little bit of the stuff in his milk, and I hate to refuse him.

So I poured some coffee into the Great One's milk. I
noticed Rob staring at me, and felt guilty. "I know, I know, I'm raising a coffee addict," I said.

"Yay! Coffee milk!" Gretzky shouted. He put it to his lips, about to guzzle it all down in one gulp, and I turned back to Curious George.

But something wasn't right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something just wasn't right. I looked back up at Rob.

He was staring at Gretzky. Staring at him, frozen with shock and horror.

What the hell was that all about? Why did Rob feel so strongly about caffeine for three year olds?

And then it hit me.

Oh, no. Oh Lord, no.

No, it can't be.

The coffee milk was already starting to pour down my son's vulnerable throat.

My arm leapt out. It slammed Gretzky's glass away from his mouth.

The glass crashed to the floor and broke, spewing coffee milk all over the place. I desperately hoped that most of the coffee milk was on the floor now—and not inside of Gretzky.

Because that coffee was poisoned.

Rob had killed Penn, and he thought I knew it, so he poisoned my coffee.

I looked at Rob. Rob looked at me. Gretzky started crying.

Then Rob drew a small gun from his pants pocket. My kid stopped crying and stared at it. So did I.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then Rob said, "Hey, Gretzky, you want to go play with the barrel of monkeys? They're in t
he front room, right by the win
dow."

"Is that a real gun?" Gretzky asked.

"No," Rob said, but gave me a look to make sure I knew he was lying.

"Daddy, why'd you spill my coffee milk?" Gretzky turned to me angrily.

"Sorry, honey, it was the wrong kind of coffee." Rob impatiently waved his g
un, a silent message that I bet
ter get Gretzky out of there fast. "Hey, why don't you go play with those monkeys in the other room?"

"But you're reading me a book!"

I checked Rob's face. His eyes had narrowed into unreadable slits, and for all I knew he was about to blast us both. I pleaded with my boy. "Honey—"

"No!"

I glanced at Rob aga
in, and this time I had no trou
ble reading his eyes. Or his gun, which was pointed at me, steady.

"Sweetheart," I said, panicky, "how about if you get the monkeys to play hockey with each other?"

Gretzky's face instantly turned sunny. Monkeys
and
hockey—what a combination. "Okay," he said, and raced to the other room.

I would have heaved a huge sigh of relief if I didn't have a gun barrel in my face. "Now drink your coffee," Rob told me. His voice was ice cold.

"You'll never get away with this," I replied, my voice several octaves higher. I sound like a ba
d Holly
wood movie, I thought to myself, like an actor in someone else's dream.

Rob quickly jolted me back to reality. "Thanks for the tip. Now drink the fucking coffee or I'll shoot you."

"Some choice."

"I'll shoot your boy, too."

"For Christ's sake, Rob, I didn't even know it was you. I thought it was Bonnie."

Rob eyed me in b
ewilderment, then started laugh
ing. "You're shitting me."

I laughed, too. Who
knows, maybe if we shared a lit
tle chuckle together, Rob would lighten up. "Hell no, I had Bonnie down cold. I knew she did that second burglary, and she was making death threats against this girl named Molly Otis, so I figured she killed Penn."

Rob abruptly stopped laughing and glowered at me. "So why didn't you just
tell
me? Why'd you have to be so fucking
elliptical?"

Elliptical
. No one who uses words like "elliptical" would ever actually shoot someone, would they? "Rob, put the gun down already. I can't do anything to you. I don't have any evidence."

Rob gave a you-can't-fool-me look. "Sure, you do. Gretzky drank some of that shit. They'll find it in his blood."

My heart thudded. "You mean, he already drank enough to kill him?!"

Thank God, Rob shook his head no. "But he drank enough so that if I let you go, and you get his blood tested, they'll find it. And they'll find the same stuff in Penn."

This was incredibly aggravating. "Damn it, Rob, why'd you have to
tell
me that? I never would've thought to get his blood tested if you hadn't suggested it."